Monday, January 7, 2013

Greek allusion?

The Christian religious allusions in Cuckoo's Nest made me wonder if there was any other types of religious allusions in the novel. It seemed to me that the black boys and Nurse Ratched could be like the three Furies and Hades/Pluto in Greek/Roman mythology (Latin class woohoo!). Hades/Pluto is the God of the Underworld in Greek/Roman mythology and the Furies are kind of like his workers. So, if the similarities were intentional, it may further the nurse and boys depiction as basically the epitome of evil. I also just googled Furies to make sure I was making some kind of sense and a picture came up that depicted the Furies looking a lot like angels. The black boys in the book were typically described as "angels of death", which is literally what the Furies are. I also thought it was interesting that in mythology, the Furies were female and Pluto was male so it was a kind of gender reversal in Cuckoo's Nest.

1 comment:

  1. I that's a great point, I think that when the Nurse was attacked by Mcmurphy and none of the black boy even made a move to her is how the furies might act towards Hades.

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